Tag: brand promise

This conversation continues on from where the earlier one ended. As promised, I have been looking at what Nunwood has to say about certain brands. And find myself in a position to share with you the table that I have put together:

What Does It Take To Be A Customer Experience Excellence Leader?

Just about everyone I come across business is looking for the answer, the recipe, the formula for turning the ordinary into extraordinary, base metal to gold; Nobody has or makes the time to linger, to think and rethink, to grapple with, experiment, and finally arrive at a home made ‘solution’ to any serious challenge. So is there a recipe/formula for CX excellence?

If there is, then it is worth taking a look at First Direct as it is in top place in 2014 and has consistently been in the top 10. Here is what the folks at Nunwood say on the matter (bolding mine):

The First Direct formula is remarkably simple one, yet it has proved difficult to implement in other organisations: remove the barriers between customers and the bank; employ people who want to serve the customer and care about doing a good job; train them intensely and empower them to handle and resolve any issues brought to them by the customer.

What does this look like from a customer perspective? Let’s listen to a First Direct customer:

I was in Venice when my credit card was refused and it was quite stressful. I phoned First Direct and talked with a patient man with a great sense of humour who spent time talking to me about the holiday, acknowledged this this was a stressful thing to happen and worked methodically to sort thing out. I rarely phone First Direct as I can do almost everything online, but is was so important that when I needed them, they were unfailingly polite, human and ready to treat me as valued customer.

What Is It That Is Missing From The CX Game Of Excellence?

I have read the Nunwood report several times. And putting this report together with other reports and my lived experience I find myself thinking “There is no rocket science here!” and find myself in agreement with the author of the Nunwood 2014 UK CX report when they say (referring to First Direct) that the formula for CX excellence is a remarkably simple one. So why is it that so many brands fail to make any meaningful shifts/progress in CX excellence? Allow me to point at what occurs to me as ‘that which is missing the presence of which makes all the difference’ by sharing a personal story with you.

Earlier this week I was due to be at an important meeting in central London at 10:00. Seven people were counting on me to be there to ‘chair’ the meeting. I was counting on myself to be there to chair the meeting. The unexpected occurred on my way to the rail station. I found myself at a stand still on the road for 45 minutes or so. I took the next train – thirty minutes later than I had planned. This meant that my contingency was gone – everything had to work out just right if I was to make that meeting on time. I arrived at Paddington Station and made my way hurriedly toward the underground. Suddenly, I found my feet sliding, no control, left knee smacks into the hard tile floor, right leg twists awkwardly, the right ankle is in some pain. A helpful gentlemen helps me up. I recover and get that the floor has become an ice rink in some place (food for a future post). I walk slowly, in pain, towards the underground. The up escalator is out of action so I make my way up the stairs – slowly and awkwardly, in pain. I walk for several minutes to the underground entrance. It is closed. I ring both of my colleagues and the client to let them know that I am likely to be late.

Making my way to the taxi rank I notice a long queue and get that if I wait there I will not get to the meeting on time. So I make my way down the stairs and out of Paddington Station. Leaving the station, the rain falls down and I start getting wet. I walk away from Paddington station and towards central London. Why? I get that I have to get far enough away from the station to find an empty taxi. As I am walking I am in pain and mindful that I have to walk carefully on my sprained ankle. After walking for 5 – 10 minutes I find a black cab. I tell the cab driver that he is blessing, a Godsend. We arrive at the client’s office – five minutes after the meeting has started. What do I find? The meeting is on the sixth floor and all the lifts are out of service. What do I do? I embrace the pain, walk as mindfully and carefully as I can, and make my way up the stairs to the sixth floor. I chair the meeting, we do what needs to be done. Just after noon I leave and make my way home as I am in considerable pain.

What was it that allowed me to overcome a series of obstacles and considerable pain to honor my commitment? Absolute commitment to the commitments that I make: playing full out to honor my word. Ask yourself how often you find that kind of commitment when it comes to the CX realm. Now you have your answer to why it is that so few are CX Excellence Leaders and most are languishing in ‘no mans land’ of averageness.

Enough for today. In the next post I will bring this series of post on the Nunwood 2014 UK CX report to a close. I wish you a great day and thank you for your listening.

You are most effective when you act out of essential human values. When you behave with integrity, you use the challenges in your life to express your higher self. You might not always achieve success, but you can always behave honourably……

Essential integrity allow you to develop strength, inner peace, and self confidence. It acts like a climbing harness, catching you when the challenges of the world prove too arduous. When you trust this harness, you feel more enthusiasm and less fear during the climb.

Essential integrity provides the secret to achieving happiness in a world where you will inevitably end up losing all your possessions – even your life and the lives of those you love.

I say that essential integrity is also the access to living the brand promise, treating employees and customer right, and cultivating enduring-meaningful relationships with all stakeholders including customers. Think Amazon. What does Amazon do amazingly well? Live the Amazon mission (of being the Earth’s most customer-centric company) by keeping its promises to its customers.

I thank you for listening to my speaking. I am grateful that you exist and that in your listening my speaking finds fertile soil. I thank you for reaching out to me and letting me know that my speaking, my existence makes a difference to your existence. What is present between me and you is love.

According to the CIM: “Over the last fifteen years, the concept of branding has evolved from merely a design and communications-led ideal to one which runs far deeper into the DNA of an organisation. Today’s CMO has little choice but to acknowledge that whilst brands are built on promises, it’s the experience delivered that makes the difference between a myth and a reality.” So how are marketers and the organisations they work for/within getting on in making this shift?

According to the research/report put out by CIM there are 7 key dimensions at the heart of the branded customer experience: strategic vision, leadership, customer-centricity, culture, operations, measurement and marketing clout. Here’s what caught my attention under each of these dimensions:

Strategic Vision

The priority is making the short-term profits. How have I come to this conclusion? Only 20% of the respondents say that their organisation is willing to sacrifice short-term profits to adhere to the brand promise. Which means that 4 out of 5 organisations are NOT willing to adhere to the promises they make to their customers if this means sacrificing short-term profits.

Which brand management tool is considered useful and yet the least used? Employee brand behaviour guidelines. How are employees going to live the brand if there are not clear brand behaviour guidelines? And even that is not enough in itself, the brand guidelines have to be embodied/enacted. What do the marketing folks excel at? Issuing brand values and identity guidelines – strikes me that we are in the land of messaging/design/PR.

Leadership

I suppose the critical question here is whether the Tops (the leadership team) embody/live the brand through their decision making and their behaviour. Here’s what the research throws up:

6 out of 10 leadership teams do NOT use the brand positioning/brand promise to guide their decision making;

7 out of 10 leadership teams do NOT know what the brand means for their part of the organisation;

Only 1 out of 2 leadership teams embody/enact behaviours that are in line with the brand positioning/brand promise.

How does that show up for you? For me it speaks volumes as to how leadership teams see and relate to the brand.

Customer Centricity

Given all the talk about generating customer insight and acting rapidly/effectively on this insight to both improve the customer experience and to develop/introduce new products/services to address unmet customer needs I found it instructive to look at the reality as viewed/shared by the marketers. According to the research the issue is not with the lack of insight nor the sharing of this insight within/across the organisation. The issue is in the organisation’s failure to act on that insight:

For 9 out of 10 businesses customer insight and research are NOT the main drivers of decision making in the business.

At least 8 out of 10 businesses do NOT anticipate customer needs with new products and services; and

Only 4 out of 10 businesses understand and track customer preferences.

Culture

It is fashionable to say that ‘culture eats strategy for lunch’. I’d like to modify it and say ‘culture eats brand for lunch’. If I am correct then the fit between the culture and the brand promise/positioning really matters. Here are the key point coming out of the research: “brand values are well represented during recruitment and on-boarding, but lacking translation to the customer experience.” This suggests that there is no strong linkage between espoused values (the brand values, the brand promise, the brand positioning) and the behaviour of the people within the organisation. Put differently it appears that brand values/brand promise is all talk in most organisation. Here are a couple of stats:

Only 3 out of 10 organisations empower everyone regardless of department or level to build the brand and work to protect it;

In 8 out of 10 organisations employees do NOT understand their role in creating/delivering a branded customer experience.

Operations

A promise is a promise whether made by marketing or sales and this promise is made real by operations. What does the research say on this? It says “Operations and internal support services aren’t supporting the customer experience”Here are some stats that go along with this conclusion:

Only 2 out of 10 organisations have put in place operations and internal support services that support the delivery of the branded customer experience;

Only 2 out of 10 organisations have employee policies and processes that are in line with the brand promise/positioning;

Only 2 out of 10 organisations insist that their suppliers and partners be compatible with the brand promise.

Measurement

Only 2 out of 10 organisation reward/value brand and customer related non-financial measured of success; and

Only 2 out of 10 organisations are able to link the quality of the branded customer experience to business value.

Marketing Clout

How powerful is the marketing function within the organisation? Is this even a function that is listened to with respect? It doesn’t seem so, the report says “respect and influence under pressure, but positive signs of input into cross business initiatives”. This claim is supported by the following:

In 7 out of 10 organisations the brand/marketing function is NOT well respected throughout the organisation;

In 7 out of 10 organisations the marketing function does NOT have a strong influence on what other departments do; and

In only 3 out of 10 organisations do other business functions/teams freely invite the marketing folks to their project teams and workshops.